Preparation
A few sessions in the weeks beforehand. Some of it is orientation — what the medicine tends to do, how you will ask for a hand or for quiet — but most of it is building trust with the people who will be sitting with you.
Education — medicine-assisted therapy in Australia
Curious about medicine-assisted therapy? Here is how it works in Australia.
Since 2023, a small number of authorised psychiatrists here have been able to prescribe psilocybin or MDMA as part of a course of therapy. This page is a plain explanation of what that involves and where we fit. If it sounds like it might be relevant to you, tell us privately and we will talk it through.
One thing to say up front
This page is information, not an offer of treatment. These medicines can't lawfully be advertised to the public in Australia, so you won't find a price here and there is nothing to book. Whether treatment is lawful and right for one particular person is decided by an authorised psychiatrist, at a full assessment — not by a website.
What it involves
The medicine is the doorway. The therapy is the room.
The dose gets the attention, understandably. But in the trials this field is built on it sat inside a course of psychotherapy — hours of preparation before, hours of integration after, with the same clinicians either side. That is why the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists treats the therapy as fundamental rather than an add-on. A course runs across several months, in three parts.
The dosing day
A day, not an appointment. Health checks, the medicine given by the psychiatrist, then six to eight hours in a private room with your team there the whole time. You cannot drive afterwards, so someone you trust collects you.
Integration
Therapy in the days and weeks afterwards, starting while it is all still fresh. This is where an experience turns into something that changes things, or doesn't.
The legal side
Is it legal here?
Yes, inside a narrow frame. On 1 July 2023, MDMA and psilocybin became available to authorised prescribers in Australia for two named conditions. Three things have to hold at once.
Two medicines, two conditions
Psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, MDMA for PTSD. Not for anything else.
One kind of prescriber
Only a psychiatrist the TGA has authorised, working to a protocol an ethics committee has approved. Your GP cannot prescribe it.
Not a first step
The framework assumes the established treatments have been tried properly first, and screening is careful.
The evidence
Does it work?
Sometimes, and not always. The trials behind both medicines showed meaningful improvement for a lot of participants against control conditions. Those trials were small and few, follow-up was short, and reviewers rate the certainty of the evidence as low. Some people didn't improve, and a small number got worse.
Real potential, real risk, and no clinician can tell you what your outcome will be. Anyone who does is guessing.
Our part
Where does Unison fit?
We are the therapy side of it — preparation, the therapist beside you on a dosing day, integration afterwards. Prescribing and medical safety sit with the authorised psychiatrist, which is where they belong.
Who is involved
Our consulting psychiatrist is Dr Joe Starke, a RANZCP Fellow who has worked in this field since before it was legal here. Our Carlton practice is recorded with the TGA as a treatment site under an authorised prescriber's ethics-approved protocol, and Meg Wilson is an approved member of that therapy team. Nicki Nelis is also trained in psychedelic-assisted therapy.
Your therapist stays your therapist
Most people who ask us about this are already in therapy here, and the therapist they trust is the one who would be beside them. If the assessment says no — which happens — your therapy carries on as it was.
Already had an experience elsewhere
A retreat, a ceremony, a night that went further than planned. Making sense of it afterwards is ordinary therapy — no assessment, no framework, and you don't need to be pursuing anything else to ask for it.
Suitability
Who is it for?
Broadly speaking, this is where the door tends to open and where it tends not to. Neither list is a test you can pass — suitability comes out of assessment and clinical judgement.
It may be worth a conversation if
- Adults whose depression has not shifted after the usual treatments were tried properly
- People who can get to Carlton in person for the assessment and for every dosing day
- People with someone they trust to collect them and stay that evening
- People with the time and the money for something that runs across months
It is usually not the right fit where there is
- A personal or close family history of psychosis, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder
- Serious heart disease, uncontrolled blood pressure, or a past stroke
- Pregnancy or breastfeeding
- Some psychiatric medications, which interact badly. A supervised change is sometimes possible and that is the psychiatrist's call — never adjust your own psychiatric medication
Being declined isn't a dead end. It means a different plan, and that is a conversation we have with you either way.
Money
What does it cost?
It is expensive — an assessment, preparation, full days of supervised dosing with two clinicians in the room, and integration afterwards. There is no Medicare item for the program and private cover is thin, though a GP referral may attract a rebate on the assessment.
We don't publish a figure, partly because the plan differs per person and partly because we're not permitted to advertise this. You get an itemised quote before you agree to anything.
If the cost is what's pushing you elsewhere
A retreat overseas, or a friend of a friend, can look like the practical option. Outside this pathway, though, there is no screening, no known dose, no emergency equipment nearby, and usually nobody to help when something surfaces a fortnight later.
Talk to us before you book anything. We would rather have an honest conversation about your options — including the ones we have no part in.
Next steps
What happens if you get in touch?
Three steps, and you can stop at any of them. Referrals, tests and timing get worked through with you one thing at a time, later — not handed over as a list.
- 01
You write to us
A short private form, or an email if you would rather. Not a booking, and it commits you to nothing.
- 02
A clinician replies
Usually within a business day, and we send you our information pack so you can read the detail at home.
- 03
We talk it through
If it looks like it might be relevant, the psychiatrist assesses you and decides. An assessment is not an approval, and not everyone proceeds.
Clinicians who work in this space
Both also do ordinary therapy — trauma, depression, the middle of a hard year.
Nicki Nelis
Counsellor · she/her
Nicki is a Gestalt therapist with nearly 20 years of experience helping young people and adults navigate life's complex transitions. She provides a warm, relational space to explore identity, self-esteem, grief, and relationship patterns.
Meg Wilson
Founder, Psychotherapist · she/her
Meg is the founder and lead psychotherapist for Unison. For over a decade, she has integrated clinical psychotherapy with creative art therapies and systemic relationship models, with a special focus on non-typical relationship structures.
Further reading
If you want more than one page of it
Medicine-assisted therapy in Australia
The long version — what these therapies are and how access works here.
ReadPreparation and integration
Why the therapy either side of the dose is where the work happens.
ReadHarm reduction and integration
Meg in conversation about integration outside a clinical setting.
ReadWant to talk about it privately?
Register your interest and a clinician will get in touch for a private conversation. No obligation — and "no, but here is what we would suggest instead" is a real answer.
Or write to us directly: contact@unisonmentalhealth.com.
Unison is not a crisis service. If you are in immediate danger call 000, or contact Lifeline 24/7 on 13 11 14.
If things are bad right now, don't wait on a pathway that takes months. Call 000 in an emergency, Lifeline on 13 11 14, or the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467. Our crisis and support lines page has more.